Business enterprises use database management systems (DBMS) to store business information commonly known as content data in the form of business objects. One or more business applications can create, modify and access the content data in support of business activities. For example, the content data can include information about items in the enterprise's product portfolio such as product name, part number, product description, an image of the product, pricing information, inventory or availability information and other similar product related information. One or more applications can be used to manipulate selected content data in order to create, for example, seasonal catalogues (e.g. fall, winter and spring catalogues).
As the content data can be used to support one or more critical business activities, integrity of the content data is important. This can prove problematic when new content data is being developed or existing content data is being modified. In order to properly verify the new or modified content data it is often desirable to test the new or modified content data before it is made available to a general audience of users. The risk to content data integrity usually precludes testing using a production database.
An approach that has been used to address these needs is to create an authoring environment in which content data can be modified and new content data can be added without immediately committing them to the production database. This approach normally requires changes to the database schema to enable management of the content data in the authoring environment. Changing the database schema necessitates changes to applications that work with the production database. Therefore, applications need to be modified in the authoring environment with respect to the applications in the production database environment. This can add to the cost and complexity of testing changes to the content data.